wallpaper

Nature is amazing, and it takes little addition from a photographer to record it. The amazement is about the very late spate of winter when spring ought to be getting on. This Hazel shrub shows how it’s a mixed-up world now: catkins covered in snow! All the photographer does, is wait for a sprinkle of sun in between the clouds to add a little to the photo. Luckily I did not have to wait long in the cold 😉

Like this:

In the part of the world where I live, winter is mostly dreary: cloudy days, with temperatures just above freezing, rain, chilly wind. A few weeks of snow cover (a few centimetres deep) are promised to us by the climate statistics, but in subjective experience it’s much rarer than that. And especially rare are days like this weekend, when a few flakes of snow fall on a windless day. A good occasion to rediscover the beauty of one’s own backyard dressed in a very picturesque cover.

Rummaging through old photos (a nice passtime on gray weekend days) I discovered that I never shared any of my Iceland trip pictures! It was just a short visit, in the summer of 2011. In fact, just a two-day trip after the end of a conference I attended there. Too short to say that I’ve seen Iceland, but long enough to get the feeling that it is a country where you must become a geologist, a biologist, a storyteller–or a photographer. And a country where it is better to be a visiting photographer than to be living in (sorry, Icelandic readers!) because the Icelandic idea of summer is too close to winter for me: not too cold but with the constant wind it did not feel pleasant!

Anyhow. The pebble beaches of Londrangar and Djupalonssandur (if you teleport to this location, you’re not far off, just drive west for some time) provided subjects for typical wallpaper pictures at every square meter. And think of the sound of those pebbles rolling with every wave that breaks on the beach!

Typical wallpaper picture for me means: not too distracting but enough matter of interest to catch your gaze in between, for instance when you’re switching from one app to the other or when you’re waiting for inspiration ;-). They must be simple but not boring, with a little something that breaks the (random) pattern–what I like to call in one word ‘sinplicity‘: simplicity with a little sniff of ‘sin’ to make it interesting.

As always: you’re welcome to click on the photos and download the original, larger version for your pleasure. Enjoy, and keep you life sinple!

Like this:

Flying bumblebee over a flowers–looks easy and in a way it is: just keep snapping at the little critter until you’ve got it in focus and in the right place, which means: in between visiting two flowers for nectar and with a reasonably ‘quiet’ background. But do you realise how fast these bumble bees fly? And how little time they need to hide themselves from your camera in another flower? Luckily modern cameras give you many shots per second at full resolution (sharpness!), and fast autofocus systems (not nearly fast enough though–you still need a lot of luck and a lot of pictures). So that’s what I did for this one: set the camera to hi-speed photographing, maximum aperture to get fastest shutter speeds, and just keep the button pressed! And delete all the bad ones…

Anyhow: hopefully “the flight of the bumble bee” is your kind of wallpaper!

Like this:

A tour for classical cars started (and finished) in my village. Good occasion to have a look at some boys’ toys!

Lighting conditions were not perfect, and shining metal with all its reflections is never easy to catch properly in a photo. But with a little contrast tweaking (taking highlights back, making shadows lighter) results get better quickly.

The crinson one was a 1948 Willey’s Jeepster; the blue one an A-Ford from 1930 and the silver one a small sports car of which I did not know the make or year. (Help is welcome!)

Like this:

On my trip through the southern/western part of Japan, one set of pictures that I have been taking were not meant as photos to exhibit, but rather as desktop backgrounds. By and by, I’ll post some here. they are generally of tranquil spots of nature, but I also have become fascinated with the huge boulders, some inthe rough, others neatly shaped, used in castle walls. Such as the this one from Himeji castle. At the moment, I only have it in a format close to 1680×1050. I’m not so tech-savvy as Jeffrey Friedl, who apparently makes his desktop backgrounds in umpteen formats at a single mouse click, so if you would like to have it in a different format, please let me know–there’s a reaction button under this post!